Originally Posted by
Badou
I feel like Taylor's done a decent job at setting up Dick and Babs together. I'm saying that as someone who has been very critical of this run from the start and was also worried in those opening issues with Babs making Dick look ineffectual. It's balanced out more where I am not as worried. Overall I just think Taylor's approach has been good given where Dick and Babs are at in their lives.
The main problem with Dick and Babs' relationship has been that it never made sense that the two weren't together. Even going back to before the New 52 DC never really established any good reason for their separation. Then when the New 52 happened it was just a constant stream of excuses. Dick is with someone, Babs is with someone, Dick is moving to Chicago, Dick is now "dead", Babs is with someone else now, now Dick is in Bludhaven with someone new, now Babs is with someone new again, now Dick lost his memories and is with another new person. It became very frustrating because it felt like Dick and Babs entire dynamic was introducing new roadblocks and dragging out the "will they/won't they" story as much as they could. It made me just lose all interest in comic romances.
Taylor's approach I feel like is recognizing all that and is writing it in a way where even the character's themselves are tired of all the excuses. Which makes sense as the two are written like they are older now and have all this history and old drama where they want to move on from it. In the most recent issue where Dick and Babs have their moment at the top of the building Taylor introduces a standard comic excuse. Where Dick basically says they can't be together because it is too dangerous with his identity being exposed. Then Babs literally laughs at it and says "Fuck that" and explains that they are always going to be in danger because they are superheroes so it doesn't matter. It was a very meta way of moving on from the typical comic romance tropes where Taylor is explaining that it is okay for the two of them to be together and happy as heroes. Which is an approach I liked given where they are at in their lives.
Even their reintroduction to each other I think was handled okay. You had Babs show up in Bludhaven to explain Alfred's will and the two just kind of naturally started becoming close again. It sort of wasn't treated like a big deal which I liked. It fit with two characters that have so much history together, but I can understand how some wouldn't like that. As for the how tame the relationship has been portrayed I said before that I think Taylor has made a very obvious effort to not want to sexualize Babs. She is always drawn in a lot of clothing, her new costume is designed to not show off curves, and even in the one scene she was in bed sleeping she was wearing a very baggy shirt. So I think that is the main reason why there hasn't been any "hot" moments between the two.
Also I'm kind of just ready for some progression. It is one of the main reasons why I didn't like Bludhaven or Blockbuster because it feels so regressive to me, and why I'm not looking forward to revising the Zucco drama, but with where Dick is at in his life I'm okay with him having a romance that actually progresses to something new. Be that with marriage or even kids, and looking at it very analytically I feel like Babs has the most utility for stories. She is a major character herself but can also fit into more aspects of Dick's life naturally than anyone else. I'm just very tired of new romances with where Dick is at in his life and I have no interest in revisiting Dick's 7th most interesting previous love interest or something. I'm just kind of tried of the typical comic romance and I'd be okay with Dick's love life getting some finality, or as much finality as you can have in comics these days.
I get not everyone feels that way and wants different things out of Dick's relationship stories, but I feel like given his current age and situation I think it is the most interesting option. There are really only two other romance stories I can think of that I would be interested in. One being if DC ever decides to revisit the Grayson spy series as a Black Label book where I'd like to see him and Helena together again in some sexy spy adventures. I feel like that series got cut short and there is more story to be mined with them in that setting even if Seeley did his best to try and wrap it up in his Nightwing run. The other one is probably because of Waid and Mora's very good World's Finest series where a fun teenage romance between Dick as Robin and Kara as Supergirl in the Fab Five Titans era would be interesting. There are a lot of threads to build something there with Robin and Supergirl being maybe the two most famous legacy characters in comics, both having the pressure of being in the shadow of the two biggest heroes in DC, both being very outgoing and headstrong, and the both having lost their families in tragic ways. So the two as teens might have a very interesting dynamic. Outside those two specific situations I'm not really that interested in anything else I guess.